A new algorithm released by MIT students can determine the sexual orientation of a person just by analyzing the sexual preferences of their friend networks.

It didn't begin as an insidious way to publicly out Facebook friends. The pair of MIT students who designed the algorithm did so for a class that was focused on ethics and law on the internet. The assignment was simple enough: Exactly how much information do we unwittingly reveal about ourselves when we friend people, "Like" certain topics, or become a fan of certain things?

The answer is: A lot more than you realized.

According to an analysis of friends networks on Facebook, students found that gay men had more gay friends than straight friends. Using that logic, a pair of MIT students created an algorithm that essentially "outs" people just by analyzing the breakup of their friends networks. Early tests of the equation successfully "outed" several gay people, just by analyzing the sexual preferences of their personal networks of friends. However, this same algorithm only worked to identify gay men; lesbians and bisexual men or women were not as easily outed.

"When they first did it, it was absolutely striking - we said, 'Oh my God - you can actually put some computation behind that,'" states Hal Aberson, a computer science professor at MIT. "That pulls the rug out from a whole policy and technology perspective that the point is to give you control over your information - because you don't have control over your information."

The project focused on the "homophily principle," basically the fact that like attracts like. If you're into dogs, you're more likely to friend people who also like dogs. If you're gay, you're more likely to hang out with people who are also gay. Using this basic principle, researchers are able to pick out a person's political affiliation, gender and even what breed of dog they prefer.

This really puts a new spin on internet privacy. It's not as easy as removing or hiding personal information on Facebook or Twitter. We can reveal truly personal information just by the internet crowd we pal around with.

I honestly don't see how this works... I mean a persons facebook friends will be made up of a variety people in their lives including family and family friends friends of friends you've only met once or twice e.t.c. so for it to judge you purely based on that it must skim over a lot of gay people and perhaps even misinterpret some straight people as gay.

Is there anyway to get this on my facebook? I have some friends I need to out...Anyway, I get what it's getting at, I think it's pretty funny and I almost remember hearing about this sometime last year, but I'd love to use this.Especialy when it gets furthered.Alright, Algorithm, find out my friends weird kinks...

It amuses me how much creedence people put into arbitrary computer algorithms (or other science for that matter) that take a completely surface impression and pass it off as something scientific. It's almost like science has become a religion to some people.

Overall its a pretty interesting system and shows just how unsecure data is on the internet although I guess it would sometimes give false positives.It would be interesting to see how far they can go with this system.

A new algorithm released by MIT students can determine the sexual orientation of a person just by analyzing the sexual preferences of their friend networks.

It didn't begin as an insidious way to publicly out Facebook friends. The pair of MIT students who designed the algorithm did so for a class that was focused on ethics and law on the internet. The assignment was simple enough: Exactly how much information do we unwittingly reveal about ourselves when we friend people, "Like" certain topics, or become a fan of certain things?

The answer is: A lot more than you realized.

According to an analysis of friends networks on Facebook, students found that gay men had more gay friends than straight friends. Using that logic, a pair of MIT students created an algorithm that essentially "outs" people just by analyzing the breakup of their friends networks. Early tests of the equation successfully "outed" several gay people, just by analyzing the sexual preferences of their personal networks of friends. However, this same algorithm only worked to identify gay men; lesbians and bisexual men or women were not as easily outed.

"When they first did it, it was absolutely striking - we said, 'Oh my God - you can actually put some computation behind that,'" states Hal Aberson, a computer science professor at MIT. "That pulls the rug out from a whole policy and technology perspective that the point is to give you control over your information - because you don't have control over your information."

The project focused on the "homophily principle," basically the fact that like attracts like. If you're into dogs, you're more likely to friend people who also like dogs. If you're gay, you're more likely to hang out with people who are also gay. Using this basic principle, researchers are able to pick out a person's political affiliation, gender and even what breed of dog they prefer.

This really puts a new spin on internet privacy. It's not as easy as removing or hiding personal information on Facebook or Twitter. We can reveal truly personal information just by the internet crowd we pal around with.

YAY! Finally the self-inflicted Big Brother thing is coming to fruition. I hope people start to realize what they are unwittingly making public knowledge. Maybe this will be the first step to people understanding that by making a facebook, myspace, twitter account you are essentially letting anyone (the government) know what you are doing and what you are thinking.

Poomanchu745:YAY! Finally the self-inflicted Big Brother thing is coming to fruition. I hope people start to realize what they are unwittingly making public knowledge. Maybe this will be the first step to people understanding that by making a facebook, myspace, twitter account you are essentially letting anyone (the government) know what you are doing and what you are thinking.

The bigger concern isn't that the government will have this knowledge, but that advertising firms will; the government can do little in the face of our corporate run technology age when it comes to information control.

Mr. Mike:I'm not even saddened by how completely unnecessary this is. I'm just impressed.

Indeed. I don't think people really understand the depth of this. It is a computer code, something which is faaaar from being able to even understand sexuality, that is capable of compiling information on sexuality. Sure it is useless, sure it is unnecessary and sure it likely has to have a shit load of data to be able to be accurate... more then enough a human would of made the conclusion half way through.

But damn it... it is a bit of code that does that. That is impressive.